CHAPTER TOOLS

Keywords:

hominins;

hominoids;

human fossil record;

human postcranial anatomy;

last common ancestor (LCA)

Summary

Major discoveries of the ape and human fossil record provided the first clear evidence of the anatomy of extinct ape and human ancestors and relatives in the middle of the 20th century. The current fossil record provides a picture that is beginning to take shape about the kinds of ancestors from which humans evolved. However, gaps in the fossil record still leave unanswered some of the most important questions about our origins and evolution. This chapter reviews the main scenarios about the origin of body form in hominoids (= ape and human) and hominins (= species more closely related to modern humans than to any other living species), and what the evidence from the fossil record suggests about the evolution of the postcranial skeleton of apes and humans.